


Obsession

by coalitiongirl



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Community: ba_rosebuds, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-25
Updated: 2011-11-25
Packaged: 2017-10-26 12:44:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/283281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coalitiongirl/pseuds/coalitiongirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's obsessed with her, and she knows it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Obsession

He’s obsessed with her. 

He follows her around, taunts her from the shadows, and dances off when she tries to strike a blow. He comes to the hospital when she’s sick, delivers flowers to her doorstep, sketches her when she sleeps, and never, ever stops.

Not for a day.

Not for an hour. 

Not for a minute.

He doesn’t need to be around to turn her life upside down, to fill her thoughts and dreams and past and future. He consumes her completely, and she can’t so much as close her eyes before his face appears in her mind. 

Laughing.

Scowling.

Loving.

And the last isn’t him, but at the same time it  _is_ , and something inside of her knows that he and his alter ego are one and the same, and she separates them only for the sake of her own sanity. She  _can’t_  believe that the man haunting her is her old lover, not if she wants to move on with life. Even if every fiber of her being is screaming that he’s still hers.

Her heart.

Her spirit.

Her soul.

His soul…she wonders where it’s gone, what’s happened to it now. She doesn’t know what she believes in, what kind of afterlife might await it, but she does hope it’s happy wherever it is. Sometimes. Other times, she’s cursing it in her mind, hating it for all it’s done to her, for the way it’s given her everything only to yank it all away abruptly. The way it’s shredded her into pieces of what she once was. 

She hates him.

She loves him.

She needs him.

She goes out at night and doesn’t return until she’s caught sight of him or one of his minions. She can’t explain the warmth that rushes through her whenever she sees another of his “gifts” laid out for her, another sign that he still loathes her enough to pour all his energy into making her miserable, into remaining a constant reminder of one of her greatest failures. She doesn’t like to contemplate the warmth.

It’s followed by dread.

It’s followed by guilt.

It’s followed by shame.

She doesn’t need to tell herself that she despises him, or that she wants him dead. She knows all this, even as she knows that it will undoubtedly shatter her even more. She doesn’t dwell on it, though, not anymore. And she doesn’t- she refuses to- dwell on the way she feeds off his attentions, off the fact that she’s still, somehow, the most important person in the world to him. She doesn’t dwell on how comforting that knowledge is.

He’s obsessed with her.

And she’ll never admit that it’s her last remaining comfort.


End file.
